Jon Key is a Queer Black man originally from the small rural town of Seale, Alabama, whose work excavates the lineage and history of his identity through the intersecting themes of Southernness, Blackness, Queerness, and Family. Lately, he’s been examining the spaces Queer people of color inhabit and claim as safe while expressing the tension and anxiety of performing and existing as a Queer Black Man. Drawn using a historical range of design principles, Key’s contorted, hard-lined figures get brushed with family histories, reflected in plaid and polka-dotted surfaces. Within interior and exterior environments from America’s history of pain and oppression, Key creates stories about his Queer ancestry’s strength, support, and resilience.